What we're watching (all times EDT, unless noted): It's Friday, and it's like a blast furnace outside today in New York. Best to stay in and watch some TV, right? MLB Network has Braves-Reds or Padres-Phillies, both beginning at 7. The NFL Network has football, albeit Spokane-Jacksonville in an Arena League tilt that kicks off at 8.

Read Me: Today's Story That Doesn't Suck

The complexities of Cobb: "The foil to the romantics are the nostalgics: People who revel in Cobb as an archetypal mean-old-cuss, weirdly morphing the man into a brutal darling. Nostalgics get downright lurid about how Cobb's own teammates hated him, and how his relationships were strained. (Charlie would divorce Cobb after about 40 years of marriage, charging "extreme cruelty from the date of marriage to the present time.") Nostalgics also point to Cobb's penny-pinching, his gambling, his loud resentment of the home run flash of Babe Ruth, and the aching addictions that darkened the last years of his life. A tough and tortured man from the cutthroat old days: He is horribly awe-inspiring." [Grantland]

Elsewhere

Kobe to Turkey?: "The Turkish basketball club Besiktas has made an offer to Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant to play for its team during the N.B.A. lockout and is awaiting an answer from Bryant's agent, Besiktas Coach Ergin Ataman said Friday. Ataman, who already has a deal with the Nets' Deron Williams, said he expects to hear Bryant's decision when he speaks to Bryant's agent, Rob Pelinka, in the next day or so. Ataman said Pelinka had initiated the discussions by contacting the club this week." [New York Times]

McCourt's Dodgers are officially a ward of MLB: "Judge Kevin Gross said in an eight-page order that the team had failed to show the terms of its secured financing with hedge fund Highbridge Capital were fair, given the more favorable financial terms in MLB's unsecured loan offer. The Dodgers previously rejected MLB's offer and had refused to negotiate with the league, arguing that its financing proposal was simply an attempt by baseball commissioner Bud Selig to take control of the team and force a sale. While acknowledging an "underlying feud" between Selig and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Judge Gross said he was basing his decision on debtor-in-possession, or DIP, financing on the narrowest grounds possible and leaving arguments over the team's management for later." [ESPN.com]

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Les Miles defends purchase of videos: "‘What I need to have is film,' Miles said. ‘Because we make all the decisions ourselves on whether the guy's good enough to play, nobody else. As long as they give us the video, that's all we really need.' The quality of the video Miles received from Lyles has come into question by an ESPN report Wednesday that said the tape, which included video of quarterback Zach Mettenberger, was ‘worthless.' Miles said he had not seen the report, but disagreed with what it said." [Times-Picayune]

Big 12 has itself to blame: "The official school position: Unequal playing fields are a problem if we're not equal. Otherwise, they're just dandy. This whole crisis sprang from the deal conjured up to save the Big 12 last summer. Nebraska and Colorado bolted and Texas was threatening to join the Pac 10. That conference wouldn't allow the Longhorns to start their own network. The Big 12 would, and commissioner Dan Beebe negotiated a sweet new contract with Fox. It will pay Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma $20 million a year. The other seven conference members will get $14 to $17 million. The Big Three also got to split about $20 million in buyout fees from Colorado and Nebraska. Baylor and the rest of the Big 12 got approximately squat. Does that sound like the makings of an equal playing field? Not quite, but A&M and Oklahoma were the beneficiaries. Now they're saying the Longhorn Network epitomizes everything wrong with college football — greed, self-interest, recruiting overkill." [The Sporting News]

Foreign Commerical Interlude:

We are all Dave McKenna CLIII: Here's your daily link to Dave McKenna's brilliant "Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," which we'll be posting every day until Snyder's dumbass libel lawsuit gets smashed with a polo mallet, Gallagher-style.

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SEC Media Day was probably pretty interesting after this: "But given the current environment where schools like Ohio State can lose their coach because of tattoo hook-ups, should a Tuscaloosa establishment really be advertising its store with autographed jerseys of Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, and Trent Richardson during the 2010 season?" [Outkick the Coverage]

A marathoner and former world-record holder mounts a comeback at age 40: "In hindsight, there are obvious questions. By grinding through such demanding training, did Khannouchi put himself at greater risk of injury? Impossible to know for sure, though he acknowledges the paradox: In all likelihood, his competitive desire-that hunger to win, cloaked in a 5-foot-5, 120-pound frame-both carried him to the apex of his profession and curtailed his career. 'But there's nothing you can control about that,' Khannouchi said. ‘You can't say, 'You know what? Instead of running hard today, let's save my body for another year.' It doesn't work that way. I don't regret what I've done, because I had a lot of good days and good years.'" [Wall Street Journal]